Inside technology.

Mci Worldcom Pushes Voice, Data Service, Awaits Wireless Opportunity

Even though MCI WorldCom Inc. dropped out of the bidding for AirTouch Communications Inc. last week, it will be in the market for buying a major wireless phone network at some point.

MCI WorldCom is America's second-largest long-distance company with more local connections to its customers than anyone else, but all the wireless services it offers these days it buys from others and resells to its customers.

"We know that we must invest in our own wireless system," said Ron McMurtrie, MCI vice-president of product marketing on a Chicago visit. "AirTouch wasn't right, but when we find something that makes economic sense, we'll buy it."

Right now MCI is pushing its latest product designed for business customers that provides voice and data connections at discounts of up to 25 percent. The firm is trying to lock in as many customers it can before some local Bell companies get federal permission to offer long-distance service, which McMurtrie expects may happen within a year or 18 months.

Since the merger of MCI and WorldCom, the combined firm now has facilities in place to reach about 75 percent of North American-based businesses with its own network, McMurtrie said.

By carrying voice and data traffic on its own network, MCI WorldCom can assure the quality and provide customers with the ability to track its traffic on the Internet as well as get its bills and pay them electronically.

"The merger gave us the critical mass we need to serve customers on our own equipment end-to-end, even those with overseas offices," said McMurtrie. "We're trying to lock in our customers by setting a very high-performance benchmark."

Wireless service has become a critical component for any company that aspires to be a full service provider, and depending upon others to fill that need runs counter to the long-term strategy at MCI WorldCom.

Another component is high-speed data connections over DSL, or digital subscriber lines, which many companies are beginning to offer this year.

"We don't have a DSL product yet," said McMurtrie, "but we do have plans. We'll be making some announcements on DSL later this year."

A break in the weather: The latest version of computer-assisted weather forecasting made its debut last week at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society with some help from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications based on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana.

Remotely utilizing the entire 128-processor SGI CRAY Origin2000 supercomputer in Urbana, the demonstration let weather lovers look at predictions put together by a research team at the University of Oklahoma's Center for the Advanced Prediction of Storms.

This set-up takes observations from satellites, radar, surface observers and weather balloons to give highly detailed accounts of the nature and intensity of individual storms. Predictions derived from this data can pinpoint localities where storms are likely to occur.

"We understand the unique nature of this run," said Larry Smarr, NCSA director. "These are forecasts used to make critical decisions, such as whether or not to ground aircraft. The high-performance computing power is necessary because if it takes too long to develop the forecast, then there isn't enough time to make those decisions. This was a breakthrough run, both in terms of the science being done and the practical applications of the work."

Business banter: Competition among phone companies resembles the partisan exchanges of politics more than it does the usual competition in commerce.

Even though they may compete strenuously for market share, executives from Ford and General Motors very seldom attribute nefarious motives to their competitors or complain that they are taking unfair advantage. But for the past several years it's become common--expected even--for executives of local and long-distance phone companies to hurl insults back and forth, charging each other with being monopolists, unscrupulous profiteers or worse.

Thus it was after the Department of Justice recently gave its conditional blessing to the proposed merger of AT&T Corp., the No. 1 long-distance phone company, with Tele-Communications Inc., the No. 2 cable TV outfit, it drew a response from the trade group representing local phone companies asking why the proposed merger between SBC Communications Corp. and Ameritech Corp. wasn't acted upon first.

Roy Neel, president of the United States Telephone Association, issued a press release asking, "Where is the decision on the SBC-Ameritech merger that was submitted to the DOJ and the FCC one month before the AT&T proposal? Why the fast track for AT&T and no others?"

Neel went on to attack long-distance companies in general, calling them "cream skimmers" and saying: "The long-distance market is dominated by the Big Three and their `stealth' (dial-around) companies operating in the shroud of competition while taking advantage of the open local markets only when it suits them."

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